The Similepedia Blog

Painting a Political Picture

2008-05-04T19:28:00.002-04:00

The lioness of Chappaqua is hot on the trail of the Chicago gazelle, eager to gnaw him to pieces, like a harrowing scene out of a George Stubbs painting. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

The Devils Made Him Do It

2008-04-23T09:17:00.003-04:00

“Sean Avery is like a case of jock rash. It’s there, it bothers you, and eventually you have to just play through it.” (The New Yorker quoting a retired NHL referee, Paul Stewart, on Avery's playoff antics.

A Different Sort of Buzz

2008-04-07T20:47:00.002-04:00

Reality Stars Are Dropping Like Flies! (TMZ.com).

In Surgery, Checking the Light Upstairs

2008-04-02T19:26:00.004-04:00

My surgery lasted nine hours, and for most of it I had to be awake, so that the doctors could test the connection, like asking somebody to go upstairs and see if the light in the bedroom comes back on while you fiddle with the circuit-breaker box in the basement.(Michael Kinsley in The New Yorker).

Frogs, Hymns & the Smell of Mud

2008-03-30T19:50:00.002-04:00

There are others, but tree frog croon is deep. Like the hymns we sang every morning at school. Or muffled voices rising from the kitchen. The wind through the crack in a pane. When I hear the peepers it's time to smell mud, to dig, to quit your tent. (A Walk Around the Lake blog).

Popcorn Done, Is This Race Over Yet?

2008-03-30T19:38:00.004-04:00

One Obama adviser moaned that the race was “beginning to feel like a hostage crisis” and would probably go on for another month to six weeks. And Obama said that the “God, when will this be over?” primary season was like “a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long.” (Maureen Dowd in The New York Times).

And ...

Obama, like the preternaturally gifted young heroes in mythical tales, is still learning to channel his force.

The Spitzer Pile-Up

2008-03-11T20:13:00.004-04:00

The Eliot Spitzer case is one of those public train wrecks in which the clichés pile up like freight cars in a chain-reaction collision. “Follow the money … ” (It was an I.R.S. investigation of Governor Spitzer’s suspicious cash transfers that led to the prostitution ring.) “The cover-up is always worse than the crime … ” (It was the governor’s effort to hide the source, destination, and purpose of the money he was moving around that may be a more serious offense than violation of an antique white-slavery law.) “Pride goeth before a fall … ” (A man who dared to think he might one day be president is a national laughingstock instead). But the most apt cliché of all is the most karmic: “What goes around comes around.” (Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair).

The Wiki Metropolis: Leaves, Ancient Ruins & Some Hairy Caterpillars

2008-03-08T10:41:00.006-05:00

It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks. (Nicholson Baker in The New York Review of Books on Wikipedia, the subject a new book, "Wikipedia: The Missing Manual."

And ...
It was like a giant community leaf-raking project in which everyone was called a groundskeeper.

And ...
The fragments from original sources persist like those stony bits of classical buildings incorporated in a medieval wall.

And ...
For researchers it's a place to look stuff up, [Brion] Vibber said, but for editors "it's almost more like an online game, in that it's a community where you hang out a bit, and do something that's a little bit of fun: you whack some trolls, you build some material, etcetera."

And ...
On December 7, 2007, somebody altered the long article on bedbugs so that it read like a horror movie....

And ...
If an article bristles with some quotes from external sources these may, like the bushy hairs on a caterpillar, make it harder to kill.

And ...
When I managed to help save something I was quietly thrilled—I walked tall, like Henry Fonda in "Twelve Angry Men."

Obama's Mrs: Gladiator or Tin Man

2008-03-06T19:48:00.005-05:00

[Michelle] Obama works out like “a gladiator,” a friend has said. (Lauren Collins in The New Yorker).

And ...

When people — they’re almost always shorter — ask her to pose for pictures, instead of bending her knees she leans at the waist, like the Tin Man.

And ...

It assuages fears of difference — “We’re just like you” is the cumulative message of all the back-and-forth about the breath and the bread — and inoculates against jealousy, a smart bit of self-deprecation on the part of a young, gifted, attractive couple whose fortunes have risen quickly, like movie stars insisting that they were unpopular in high school.

Exercising the Body Politic

2008-02-23T10:30:00.002-05:00

The candidate who tried to present herself as inevitable has been out-maneuvered nearly every step of the way by a prodigy with a warm and brilliant smile who still seems as energetic as an athlete doing calisthenics before a big game. (Bob Herbert in The NYT.

Riding the Political Wave, While It Lasts

2008-02-14T20:17:00.002-05:00

Barack Obama has ridden these primaries like a skilled surfer, catching big emotional waves and riding them spectacularly, letting this new force carry him forward. Even the biggest waves, however, eventually break on the shore. (Daniel Henninger in The WSJ.

Foreign Policy With a French Flavor

2008-02-03T16:34:00.000-05:00

The foreign policy of France, like its cuisine, should be unmistakably, ineffably . . . French. (James Traub in The NYT Magazine.

Drive Through Candidates

2008-01-26T13:43:00.000-05:00

Florida is one of those places that makes participating in elections as easy as ordering a drive-thru hamburger. (Gail Collins in The NYT).

The Body Politic Weeps a Bit

2008-01-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

Let's look at the tears before they harden like resin into cliché. (Peggy Noonan in The WSJ).

And ...

He [Barack Obama] plays down emotionalism in terms of his visage (not his words), keeps his guard up, wears dignity like a cloak.

And ...

When he [Obama] appeared with Oprah in Des Moines, she vibrated at the podium like a puppy.

Beijing in Training: Getting Nowhere Fast

2007-12-29T11:05:00.000-05:00

Beijing is like an athlete trying to get into shape by walking on a treadmill yet eating double cheeseburgers at the same time. (Jim Yardley in The NYT).

Bugs, Baby Birds & 'Blood'

2007-12-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

Inside a deep, dark hole, a man pickaxes the hard-packed soil like a bug gnawing through dirt. (Manohla Dargis in The NYT writing about the film "There Will Be Blood").

And ...

Poor, isolated, thirsting for water (they don’t have enough even to grow wheat), the dazed inhabitants gaze at the oilman like hungry baby birds.

And ...

[Daniel] Day-Lewis’s outsize performance, with its footnote references to Huston and strange, contorted Kabuki-like grimaces, occasionally breaks the skin of the film’s surface like a dangerous undertow.

The Fishbowl That Is the Campaign

2007-12-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

Covering Mrs. Clinton in particular can feel like watching a candidate through thick aquarium glass — she sees you but can’t hear your questions no matter how hard you tap. (Jason Horowitz in The New York Observer).

The 'Sorry' State of Politics

2007-12-20T14:25:00.000-05:00

Indeed like salami, regret could be sliced thick or thin. (Daniel Henninger in The WSJ on the apology outbreak on the campaign trail).

And ...

With the arrival of the Web, the merest off-script remark can race like wildfire from media shrub-top to media shrub-top, threatening to burn down one's campaign by morning.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting ...

2007-12-14T15:57:00.000-05:00

Kung fu master Shi Dechao can swing his 22-pound "monk's spade," an ancient Chinese shovel, like a majorette twirling a baton. (The WSJ).

Extra Dessert, Inflight Films & Old Lady Flatulence

2007-12-10T09:19:00.000-05:00

Spend eight thousand dollars on a ticket and, if you want an extra thirteen cents’ worth of ice cream, all you have to do is ask. It’s like buying a golf cart and having a few tees thrown in, but it still works. (David Sedaris in The New Yorker).

And ...

I pulled my private screen from its hiding place in my armrest, and had just slipped on my headphones when the flight attendant came by. “Are you sure I can’t get you something to eat, Mr. . . . ?” She looked down at her clipboard and made a sound like she was gargling with stones.

And ...

For children, though, nothing beats a flatulent old lady. What made it all the crazier was that she wasn’t embarrassed by it — no more than our collie, Dutchess, was. Here it sounded like she was testing out a chainsaw, yet her face remained inexpressive and unchanging.

Cue the Breeze

2007-12-10T09:12:00.000-05:00

Michael Cera enters a scene like a soft breeze. (David Denby in The New Yorker on the new film "Juno."

Bon Mots From an Inexperienced JFK

2007-12-09T18:27:00.000-05:00

In 1960, the experience card was played by all comers against the young upstart senator from Massachusetts. In Iowa, L.B.J. went so far as to tell voters that they should vote for “a man with a little gray in his hair.” But experience, Kennedy would memorably counter, “is like taillights on a boat which illuminate where we have been when we should be focusing on where we should be going.” (Frank Rich in The NYT).

All's Not Quiet on This Northern Front

2007-12-02T12:14:00.000-05:00

“Politics is like trench warfare. Defense wins. We don’t have the political equivalent of a tank that lets you roll over the opposition. The question for Spitzer is, can he develop the tank?” (Nick Paumgarten in The New Yorker quoting Bruce Gyory about Eliot Spitzer's rocky first year at New York's governor).

And ...

“Like Rip Van Winkle,” [Spitzer] pronounced, “New York has slept through much of the past decade while the rest of the world has passed us by.”

And ...

Spitzer is fond of saying that politics is like a sporting contest: you go out, play hard, and shake hands when it’s over.

And ...

"I told the Governor, ‘The Legislature is like your in-laws. You’re stuck with them.’"

And ...

Every summer, [Joseph] Bruno, along with Senate colleagues and staffers, decamps to Saratoga, where he presides like a kind of feudal lord.

And ...

After meeting with a gathering of Democratic assemblymen, whom he'd asked for another chance, [Spitzer] told me, “It’s like I am merely an object being moved, subject to poking, pushing, like an unknown in a science lab. Everyone’s trying to push at you, figure out ‘What is it?’ ”

Politics at the Groaning Table

2007-11-23T13:14:00.000-05:00

Running for president is like entering a competitive eating contest and a beauty pageant all at once. (Jodi Kantor in The NYT.

Mitt's Mrs. Doesn't Miss the Mark

2007-11-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

"My wife says," [Mitt Romney] explains, "that watching Washington is like watching two guys in a canoe on a fast-moving river headed to a waterfall and they're not paddling, they're just arguing. As they get closer to the waterfall, they'll finally start to paddle." (Brian M. Carney in today's WSJ).

The Car Wreck That Is Baghdad

2007-11-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

Like a car crash victim in a coma, the city shut down. Life was put on hold. Baghdad's traumatized residents avoided public places, locking their doors and emptying the streets after dark. (Reuters).

The Consulting Biz: Trafficking in Intel

2007-10-23T09:23:00.000-04:00

The year before [Mitt] Romney joined [Boston Consulting Group], William Bain, one of the company’s stars, had left to start his own firm, Bain & Company, which he promised would be a radical new consulting business. If B.C.G. was like an ivory tower, Bain was a trade school. The tradition best exemplified by McKinsey, one of the oldest firms, had consultants acting like pollinating bees, moving valuable information from one company to another, even within the same industry. Much of what you paid for as a C.E.O. was the expertise that McKinsey had lifted from your rivals. (Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker).

Hillary Channeling Eleanor

2007-10-19T09:05:00.000-04:00

[Hillary Clinton] quoted Eleanor Roosevelt: "Women are like tea bags -- you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water." (Peggy Noonan in The WSJ).

Phoenix Gets 'Owned'

2007-10-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

... the life begins to leak out of “We Own the Night,” and especially out of [Joaquin] Phoenix’s performance. In the actor’s case, this seems deliberate, as if he had chosen to interpret grief as a form of petrifaction. His elbows and shoulders stiffen, and he lumbers across the sets like a Frankenstein monster. (A.O. Scott in The NYT).

And ...

“I feel light as a feather,” Bobby says in a crucial scene, at which point the movie starts to sink like a stone.

Self-Improvement With Salmon, Mussels & Yoga

2007-10-01T13:07:00.000-04:00

Off I went again to sleep, and came round to find myself alone, like a pink salmon on a slab, with "Greensleeves" playing softly on the stereo. (Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair on "the limits of self-improvement").

And ...
And a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, as they say in France.

And ...
In the morning, none too early, I descended to the beach to begin my program of yoga stretching. It was not thought advisable that I do this by myself—muscles become like mussels at my stage of life, and if not stretched carefully will either lose their elasticity or else snap with a sudden "pop" that I have already once, and disconcertingly, heard as I made the mistake of running for the phone.

And ...
This was less like being a salmon on a slab, more like being a steamed Chilean sea bass in the hands of a capable sous-chef.

And ...
I suppose one could easily enough add seaweed and algae and mud (and, on one occasion, another tincture of green in the shape of an Avocado-Citrus Body Wrap, which at least gave me a new and better way of looking like an overripe pear) to one's list of regular addictions. It would be like going to confession in between an exhausting program of sins.

For the Mets, a Daze & Some Haze

2007-09-28T09:33:00.000-04:00

Uncertainty and even despair hover over Shea Stadium and the neighboring shell of Citi Field like smog over Beijing. (Harvey Araton in The NYT).

9/11 on Display

2007-09-27T12:22:00.000-04:00

The terrifying and wrenching photographs from September 2001 on display at the New-York Historical Society are suspended from clips in neat rows like laundry hanging on a line. (The NYT).

Mattel's Inconvenient Truth

2007-09-22T10:23:00.000-04:00

“It’s like a bank robber apologizing to his accomplice instead of to the person who was robbed,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said in an interview. “They’re playing politics in China rather than doing what matters.” (The NYT in an article about Mattel seemingly apologizing about accusation its toys manufactured in China were contaminated by lead paint).

Jesse James: Can't Keep a Good Crook Down

2007-09-21T10:53:00.000-04:00

Bad man, poor man, bushwhacker, thief, [Jesse] James was as American as apple pie and the Confederate flag he wrapped himself in like an excuse. (Manohla Dargis in The NYT about the new Brad Pitt film).

And ...

Like a schoolgirl with a crush, [gunslinger] Bob Ford keeps his treasured Jesse James dime novels in a box under his bed.

Al Gore & the Hard Foul

2007-09-17T10:55:00.000-04:00

[Al Gore's] mid-career period was defined by his aggressive moderation and especially by his disastrous 1988 presidential campaign. He was like the basketball player sent into the game by his coaches — his were at the Democratic Leadership Council — to do nothing but commit fouls and injure the other team (but in this case his own team, in the sense that they were fellow Democrats). (Michael Tomasky in The New York Review of Books).

Girdles, Peaches & the Surge Twins

2007-09-12T10:22:00.000-04:00

It’s obvious that the Surge is like those girdles the secretaries wear on the vintage advertising show, "Mad Men." It just pushes the fat around, giving a momentary illusion of flatness. But once Peaches Petraeus, as he was known growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, takes the girdle off, the center will not hold. (Maureen Dowd in today's NYT).

And ...

The Surge Twins seemed competent and more realistic than some of their misbegotten predecessors, but just too late to do any good. They’re like two veteran pilots trying to crash land the plane.

An Egyptian View of the Iraq Quagmire

2007-09-11T08:06:00.000-04:00

"If the U.S. leaves Iraq it will fall under Iranian influence. The current situation as well is in Iran's favor, and one of the report's aims is to blame Iran for the U.S. troubles," [Mustafa El-Labbad, an Egyptian analyst and Iran expert,] said. "It is like a boxing fight with the two boxers caught in a clinch. The United States is unable to win by a knockout, and it is not scoring any points either." (Reuters).

Market Jitters

2007-09-10T09:15:00.000-04:00

"It's a very, very nervous market. Trying to predict a one-day movement is a bit like trying to forecast a shoal of fish -- where one goes, everyone will go. But the moves are essentially random on days when there's very little news to go on," said Nick Parsons, chief market strategist at nabCapital. (Reuters).

Beat the Kettle, Slowly

2007-08-25T12:57:00.000-04:00

Human speech, Flaubert said, is “like a cracked kettle on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to touch the stars to tears.” (Anne Midgette in The NYT).

Some Live, Some Die. Why?

2007-08-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

Brother Juniper [in "The Bridge of San Luis Rey"] considered three possible explanations for the deaths: The victims were in the wrong place at the wrong time (a heretical interpretation he immediately rejected); God was punishing the wicked for their sins; or angels were being called early to heaven. Either humans are "like the flies that boys kill on a summer day" or they're like sparrows "who do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God." (Cynthia Crossen writing in The Wall Street Journal about why some people died and others lived in the Minneapolis bridge collapse).

Gone Fishing

2007-08-19T14:37:00.000-04:00

The helicopter moved like a drunk descending a staircase, lurching and rocking while the backwash of its fiberglass blades whipped the tall, pale green grass along Newfoundland’s Main River into a frothy, snapping mass. (Pete Bodo in The NYT, about fishing up north.

And ...

And what would a fish camp be without the obligatory, faded flannel shirt, flung like a discarded snake skin over a shrub to dry?

And ...

Catching a salmon on a small river is a little like fighting a badger in a phone booth: an awful lot happens, very fast, in a small space.

Scenes From a Marriage (Yoiks)

2007-08-13T09:24:00.000-04:00

“You ask me for intimacy,” Marie was telling her husband of 22 years, Clem — and, unavoidably, the therapist and four other couples in the room — “the same way you ask if I’d like croutons on my salad.” She spoke slowly, deliberately, each word chipping out of her mouth like an ax striking wood. “I don’t hear the difference.” (Laurie Abraham in The NYT's Sunday magazine).

The End of 'Take My Money, Please!'

2007-08-11T10:56:00.000-04:00

It is, in a way, the Henny Youngman Economy. Lenders pleaded: "Take my money ... please!" In recent months, harbingers of the end of the credit bubble have been popping up like shoots of yellow forsythia. (Daniel Gross writing in slate.com).

Swatting Bugs at a Standup Gig

2007-08-11T10:47:00.000-04:00

"They [hecklers] are like little bugs hitting the windshield. You have to wipe them off and keep moving. But as soon as you get angry, you are not being clever. The secret is stay cool." (Comedian Rich Hill commenting to Reuters).

Bourne Ultimatum:: Doubling Down on Similes

2007-08-03T13:08:00.000-04:00

Jaw clenched, brow knotted, body tight as a secret, Matt Damon hurtles through “The Bourne Ultimatum” like a missile. (Manohla Dargis in The NYT).

Assessing Angelina

2007-08-02T12:51:00.000-04:00

[Angelina Jolie] is not short, but she is very small, down to her bones, which are like twigs. And yet her flesh -- her golden, mortified flesh -- is extraordinary: Like the sheets on a barracks bed, there's no slack to it. (Tom Junod in Esquire).

And ...

She shines all over. Her eyes and her lips are, as advertised, extravagant creations, but then, in addition to all that extravagance, they also glisten like wet roads in a car commercial. (Junod).

One Prognosis for The Wall St. Journal

2007-08-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

This news is like hearing from an old friend that he has a debilitating, fatal disease. You know that things will continue as they are for awhile, but you also know that the future looks bleak. (johnsmcdaniel posting on Wall Street Journal forum about the Murdoch deal).

Examining the World From a Late-Night Perch

2007-07-31T10:07:00.000-04:00

In an industry that has since become an escalating arms race of hipness, [Tom] Snyder was happy to sit on the sidelines like Switzerland, a neutral player perfectly at ease with how ordinary and out of the loop he could be. (Dave Itzkoff in The NYT).

Trying to Keep Pace With Spam Blight

2007-07-30T09:11:00.000-04:00

... Most anti-spam techniques so far have been like pesticides that do nothing other than create a more resistant strain of bugs. (Michael Specter in The New Yorker).

And ...

There are now blacklists, gray lists, and white lists, which permit people to choose whom they want to receive mail from, rather than whose mail to delete. Stopping spam this way is a bit like trying to stop the rain by catching every drop before it hits the ground. (Specter).

Hot Enough For You?

2007-07-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

We are invited to worship the sun both as lifegiver, for those left behind on Earth, and as a kind of annihilating deity; when one spacewalker drifts beyond the limits of the sunshield and catches a direct blast of solar ray, there is a tiny pffsst, and he boils away to nothingness, like a waterdrop on a stove. (Anthony Lane in The New Yorker on the new film "Sunshine").

2007: A Political Odyssey

2007-07-18T10:22:00.000-04:00

Bless Ed Markey, the House telecom subcommittee chairman, but it didn't enter his head unaided to hold up an iPhone at a hearing last week and -- like the ape in the movie "2001" -- ponder why he shouldn't use it with any wireless network he wants rather than just AT&T's. (Holman W. Jenkins Jr. in the WSJ on the Google lobby).

Genre Man: Not a Flattering Picture

2007-07-16T10:34:00.000-04:00

His beard is haphazard and unintentional, and he dresses in sweats, or in shorts and a T-shirt, or with his shirt hanging out like the tongue of a Labrador retriever. (David Denby in The New Yorker about film's romantic-comedy characters of late).

And ...

When he’s with them [friends], punched beer cans and bongs of various sizes lie around like spent shells; alone, and walrus-heavy on his couch, he watches football, basketball, or baseball on television, or spends time memorializing his youth—archiving old movies, games, and jokes. (Denby)

And ...

Katharine Hepburn in “Baby” nearly drives Cary Grant crazy with her intrusions into his work, her way of scattering his life about like pieces of lawn furniture. (Denby).

And ...

If Tracy and Hepburn were like a rock and a current mysteriously joined together, these two neurotics [in "Annie Hall"] were like agitated hummingbirds meeting in midair. (Denby)

Lesson of a Stick-Up for Afghanistan

2007-07-09T11:03:00.000-04:00

“We’re not able to destroy all the poppy — that’s not the point. What we’re trying to do is lend an element of threat and risk to the farmers’ calculations, so they won’t plant next year,” Wankel said later. “It’s like robbing a bank. If people see there’s more to be had by robbing a bank than by working in one, they’re going to rob it, until they learn there’s a price to pay.” (John Lee Anderson in The New Yorker about opium in Afghanistan).

Friedman on the 'Death Cult'

2007-07-04T19:00:00.000-04:00

Muslims have got to understand that a death cult has taken root in the bosom of their religion, feeding off it like a cancerous tumor. (Thomas L. Friedman in The NYT).

Say Cheese, Gordon

2007-06-29T21:19:00.000-04:00

When he suddenly remembers to smile -- as he did, quite awkwardly, outside No. 10 -- his face bursts into an unnatural glare, like a fluorescent light flicked on in a dark room, as opposed to the warm, glowing grin of Blair. (James Geary on Salon.com writing about Gordon Brown).

Debating a New Captain for the WSJ Ship

2007-06-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

No outside board can tame any owner, a former Sunday Times investigative reporter, Bruce Page, told me. “Newspapers are like ships,” he said. “They are real-time systems. You must make your decisions. It is better to have bad decisions rather than no decisions. You can’t have the captain of the ship appointed by people onshore, and fire him when he comes back to shore.” (Ken Auletta in The New Yorker about the prospective sale of The Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch).

And ...

In most newsrooms, John Carroll said, “there are some leaders, but the majority are followers. The majority lines up like iron filings to a magnet.”

Day at the Beach for Lady Chatterley

2007-06-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

Viewers will no doubt like and dislike Pascale Ferran's "Lady Chatterley" in ample numbers, but the picture itself is an impressive construction that seems indifferent to such concerns. Watching it is something like swimming in the ocean: You have an idyllic, sun-struck dip for a while, and then the sun goes behind a cloud and you get stung by jellyfish and heaved up on the beach, shivering, half-dead and slimed with seaweed. It's all the same to the ocean. (Andrew O'Hehir on Salon.com).

Similes on Steroids

2007-06-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

Giambi’s career spans baseball’s epoch of human growth hormone and miracle flaxseed oil, as players’ bodies expanded like saltines in water from the late ’90s and into the new millennium. (Selena Roberts in The NYT).

Tastes a Little Like Duck Soup

2007-06-15T16:18:00.000-04:00

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. (Groucho Marx).

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse. (Groucho).

Heat in the Lebanese Kitchen

2007-06-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

"This country is like a cake. On the top it is cream. Underneath it is fire." [About Lebanon]. So a Hezbollah spokesman told me last June, speaking in the shabby Beirut apartment that served as the party's press office until an avalanche of Israeli ordnance leveled the building.... (Max Rodenbeck in the New York Review of Books).

A Political Dish, Dressed & Stuffed

2007-06-14T09:58:00.000-04:00

The farce in the far north involves two national politicians who are used to getting their way, and a lobby that treats legislators like houseboys. (Timothy Egan in The NYT).

And ...

As chairman of the committee that bundled all pet projects into a single transportation bill last year, [Representative Don] Young had this to say about the legislative process: “I stuffed it like a turkey.”

Lee Marvin, a (Belated) R.I.P.

2007-06-07T09:31:00.000-04:00

Lee Marvin moved across the screen like a shark coming in for the kill. Long and lean, with shoulders that looked as wide as his hips and hair as silver as a bullet, he seemed built for speed. (The NYT).

Dowd Watch: Weighing in on Gore

2007-05-23T13:28:00.000-04:00

It’s no wonder Al Gore is a little touchy about his weight, what with everyone trying to read his fat cells like tea leaves to see if he’s going to run. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Party Hardy, on the Other Side of the Wall

2007-05-21T17:25:00.000-04:00

"Every barbarian family brews alcohol and all of them like to drink; the barbarians drink like cattle, not even stopping to breathe in the process." (A Ming-era writer, quoted in The New Yorker, in an article about the Great Wall).

Dowd Watch: Tete a Tete Aftermath

2007-05-09T14:48:00.000-04:00

“The French are like children who love to be beaten. Sarkozy is saying, ‘Go do your homework or I’ll beat you.’ The French need to be told that.” (Maureen Dowd in The NYT quoting a French woman about the presidential election of Nicolas Sarkozy over Ségolène Royal).

And ...

Or as an elegant Parisian woman who voted for Sego warned guests at a postelection dinner party, “He’s like a little Donald Trump.”

Dowd Watch: Notes from the Ségosphere

2007-05-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

It’s hard not to be drawn to a presidential candidate with a name like a Bond girl, a smile like an angel, a figure that looks great in a bikini at 53, a campaign style like Joan of Arc, and a buffet for the press corps brimming with crustless fromage sandwiches, icy chocolate profiteroles, raspberry parfaits, red Bordeaux, espresso and little almond gâteaux. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT about French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal).

And ...

But the infatuation dampened, like a spring romance.

And ...

On stage, she channeled a divine aura, levitating her arms like a Blessed Virgin statue, presenting herself as a glowing beacon against the forces of darkness, a k a Nicolas Sarkozy.

A Grasp Exceeds Its Reach

2007-05-04T12:07:00.000-04:00

It is a cliché to say so, but “Saturday Night Live” is an institution, kind of like comedy’s Junior League, continually nostalgic for its former cultural significance. (Ginia Bellafante in The NYT).

A Unique Take on Turkey's Politics

2007-05-02T08:27:00.000-04:00

“Turkey is like a transvestite. The spirit and the body are in conflict.” [Said Hakan Yavuz, an expert in Turkish religion and politics at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, about the country's tension between secular and Islamic forces.] (The NYT).

On the Home Front: With Support Like This ...

2007-04-25T12:37:00.000-04:00

“I am always a little amazed at the response that people get when they hear from Barack,” [Barack Obama's wife, Michelle,] told the crowd at the Beverly Hilton, as her husband stood by looking like a puppy being scolded, reported Hud Morgan of Men’s Vogue. “A great man, a wonderful man. But still a man. ... (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Walking Down the Aisle

2007-04-23T13:10:00.000-04:00

For many guests a wedding is less a joy than an ordeal, something to get through, like PBS pledge drives or Lyme disease. (Alessandra Stanley in The NYT).

Manny Being Manny the Prophet

2007-04-21T18:53:00.000-04:00

In 1999, after [Manny Ramirez] established himself as a superstar with the Cleveland Indians, written messages began appearing on the backs of his cleats, like admonitions from a prophet: “There will be hell to pay”; “Justice will be served”; “Can’t we all get along?”; “Live and let die.” (Ben McGrath in The New Yorker).

The local obsession with the Red Sox is such that David Wells, the former Yankee and Red Sox pitcher, and a night owl, likes to call Boston Picturetown, rather than Beantown, because of all the fans with cell-phone cameras in restaurants and bars, ready for deployment like civilian paparazzi. (McGrath).

Dr. Dahl to Surgery, Stat

2007-04-17T16:50:00.000-04:00

... [Roald] Dahl is of that select society of Saki (the pen name of H.H. Munro), Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark, and Iris Murdoch, satiric moralists who wield the English language like a surgical instrument to flay, dissect, and expose human folly. (Joyce Carol Oates in The New York Review of Books on Dahl's "Collected Stories").

Dahl's females are particularly grotesque specimens, like Mrs. Ponsonby of "Nunc Dimittis" who is "so incredibly short and squat and stiff, [she looked as if] she had no legs at all above the knees," has a "salmon mouth" and fingers "like a bunch of small white snakes wriggling in her lap." (Oates ... and Dahl).

And from Dahl ...

I was able to take most of it in—the metallic silver-blue hair with every strand glued into place, the brown pig-eyes, the long sharp nose sniffing for trouble, the curled lips, the prognathous jaw, the powder, the mascara, the scarlet lipstick and, most shattering of all, the massive shored-up bosom that projected like a balcony in front of her.

More from Dahl ...

When she marched—Miss Trunchbull never walked, she always marched like a storm-trooper with long strides and arms aswinging—when she marched along a corridor you could actually hear her snorting as she went, and if a group of children happened to be in her path, she ploughed through them like a tank, with small people bouncing off her to left and right.

Earth Day, Rush Style

2007-04-15T13:01:00.000-04:00

Rush Limbaugh, he's got the life. His days flick through the slot like postcards from paradise. (James Wolcott on Rush Limbaugh in Vanity Fair).

He appears to think that if there were true global warming the earth would crisp evenly like a baked apple. (Wolcott).

Valiant efforts have been made to correct the mistakes, half-truths, exaggerations, and confusions that Limbaugh coughs up like furballs during his preachings. (Wolcott).

Try to Keep Down the Popcorn

2007-04-15T11:46:00.000-04:00

In any case, this dawn-of-the-dead fantasia is gleefully disgusting: flesh melts, bodies explode like packages of liquid squeezed too hard, testicles roll around on the ground like spilled Brussels sprouts. (David Denby's "Grindhouse" review in The New Yorker).

And ...

When Cherry loses a leg to the ghouls, her old lover (Freddy Rodriguez, who’s a pocket-size dynamo) outfits her with a machine gun for a stump; she raises it like a dog taking a pee and blows away anyone within fifty yards. (Denby).

Shocked ... Just Shocked

2007-04-11T08:26:00.000-04:00

Like the piano player in the brothel, Imus's notables seem shocked that anyone would associate them with what goes on upstairs. (John Leo in The Wall Street Journal).

And ...

Jeff Greenfield once said that appearing on Imus is like being an important novelist excerpted in Playboy. You wish to be judged by your brilliant writing, not your proximity to the centerfold mammaries. (Leo).

A Find at the Dump

2007-04-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

His briefcase sat beside the table like something yanked out of a landfill. (Don DeLillo in The New Yorker).

Kid, Get Me Rewrite

2007-04-03T15:25:00.000-04:00

Caroline’s sense that her story is being written as she lives it becomes an analogue of the old problem of predestination versus free will, and the click-clack of the typewriter becomes the pulse of fate, like the ticking of a clock or the pounding of Poe’s tell-tale heart. (The New Yorker).

Under the Plane Tree

2007-03-25T16:39:00.000-04:00

The Athenians valued Themistocles, but they never really loved him. He was pushed from power mere months after his epic victory. [Cleanup after the Leonidas Spartan 300 mess.] As Plutarch later reported, the Athenians “treated him like a plane-tree; when it was stormy, they ran under his branches for shelter, but as soon as it was fine, they plucked his leaves and lopped his branches.” (David Brooks in The NYT).

And ...

President Bush wants to keep everything that happens in his White House secret, but when it comes to his own emotions, he’s as transparent as a teenager on MySpace. (Frank Rich in The NYT).

The British Invasion, Take 2

2007-03-22T19:15:00.000-04:00

The British have colonized Manhattan, acquiring minute rent-stabilized apartments in the West Village that they pass on to each other like hereditary titles. (A.A. Gill writing in Vanity Fair about his fellow "Brits Behaving Badly).

And ...

Most Americans think they look like gay Marines with deformed ears.

And ...

Those with the voices like broken crockery, the book-at-bedtime accent, have a lot to answer for.

And ...

We hunker together, forming bitchy old boys' and girls' clubs where we complain about and giggle over Americans like nannies talking about difficult, stupid children.

And ...

Inside, four young Englishmen from the Midlands are reminiscing over lists of Edwardian boiled sweets, like a spoof of "High Fidelity".

A Touch of the Gout

2007-03-22T16:46:00.000-04:00

[Walter Benn] Michaels argues that nothing much has changed by substituting the idea of particular cultures for the discredited idea of race. For pragmatic as well as analytical reasons, he wants the left to forget about this kind of diversity, whether we call it racial or cultural ("diversity, like gout, is a rich people's problem"), and focus instead on poverty. (The New York Review of Books reviewing Michaels' "The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality").

Middle School: An Acquired Taste

2007-03-17T15:54:00.000-04:00

“Middle school is like Scotch,” [JoAnn Rintel Abreu, an English and social studies teacher,] reflected in the teachers’ lounge one afternoon. “At first you try to get it down. Then you get used to it. Then it’s all you order.” (The NYT).

Six Packs on Parade: Sparta's 300 Go to War

2007-03-13T14:31:00.000-04:00

And what guys! Decked out like gladiators in a gay fashion layout, the soldiers from the Greek city-state of Sparta look gym-ready for battle in crotch-squeezing ensembles that expose as much flesh as an R rating will allow. (RollingStone review).

Fighting Words on Fishing's Front Line

2007-03-13T11:41:00.000-04:00

"My dad was a duck hunter," said (Thom) Watson (a sponsor of a Maine bill to limit the use of live fishing bait). "He used to say ice fishing was like a hunter sitting by a fireplace looking up the chimney waiting for a bird to fly over." (Article in The WSJ on the ice-fishing vs flyfishing wars).

The V-Word, a Salad Fork & a Carving Knife

2007-03-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

Still, it’s important that parents and their children recognize that “vagina,” like “scrotum,” the subject of last month’s bad word kerfuffle (see the children’s book “The Higher Power of Lucky”) is not really a bad word, just a word that, like a salad fork or carving knife, needs to be used correctly, not brandished recklessly. (Article in The NYT on "Vagina Monologues" controversy at John Jay High School in Cross River, NY).

Historical Forecast: Uncertainty & Gloom

2007-03-04T10:51:00.000-05:00

Western man in the middle of the 20th century is tense, uncertain, adrift. We look upon our epoch as a time of troubles, an age of anxiety. The grounds of our civilization, of our certitude, are breaking up under our feet, and familiar ideas and institutions vanish as we reach for them, like shadows in the falling dusk. (Arthur M Schlesinger Jr. in an appreciation in today's NYT).

Blogland Comity It Ain't

2007-03-01T17:26:00.000-05:00

He's like the kid who gets to the ball field early, warms-up and takes batting practice, only to sit the bench because in the end, he sucks. (A blog commentator's view of another blog commentator on The Nation blog).

Some Pork With Your Peanut Butter?

2007-02-27T19:12:00.000-05:00

After ticking off all the things New York City has done to guard against another terror attack, Bloomberg called for a risk-based dispersal of homeland security funds, accusing Congress and the White House of spreading homeland security dollars "around the country like peanut butter." (Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York at Senate hearing).

McCain, a Political Cat That's Off Balance

2007-02-24T11:48:00.000-05:00

Mr. McCain is stuck on the bridge of a sinking policy with W. and Dick Cheney, who showed again this week that there is no bottom to his lunacy. The senator supported a war that didn’t need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won’t work. It has left Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, once the most spontaneous of campaigners, off balance. He’s like a cat without its whiskers. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Expecting Freddy in the Garden State

2007-02-24T11:42:00.000-05:00

Because of spending controls, the half penny and fewer uses of one-shots, the structural deficit has been reduced – for the moment. But like Freddy Krueger, it’ll be back. (Gov. John Corzine of New Jersey in Budget Address).

New Orleans, Rushmore & Chicken on a Spit

2007-02-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Their arms were folded. It was like talking to Mt. Rushmore. (Dan Baum in his online New Yorker journal, about the New Orleans aftermath of Katrina).

E-mail and phone trees spread the word Monday morning that the City Council was going to be publicly questioning Warren Riley, the police chief, and Eddie Jordan, the district attorney, later that day. “They’re going to turn like chicken on a spit!” a friend who called to alert me to the show exulted. (Baum).

Mr. President, Welcome to Third Grade

2007-02-18T15:55:00.000-05:00

Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. (Frank Rich in The NYT. Times Select access required).

A Times Psychology Lesson on Suburban Teens

2007-02-18T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sophomoric by definition, this youth is plugged into his id but not his conscience, and the stabilizing fluid of common sense is still slipping and sliding through his system like unset Jell-O. (NYT editorial-page blurb on suburban (or subintelligent) teens who run into fences for kicks).

From the Land of Oz

2007-02-18T09:47:00.000-05:00

Those striped socks, curling back like a pair of deflating noisemakers. ... (Article in The NYT on Meinhardt Raabe, 91, the Munchkin coroner who confirmed the death of the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz." Times Select signup required.)

The Literary Amazement of Amis

2007-02-16T13:42:00.000-05:00

[Martin] Amis's observing eye is constantly abulge with amazement at the wickedness and folly of his fellow human beings. He looks upon the world with incredulous surprise, like a man stumbling befuddled out of a dim restaurant into the acid sunlight and traffic roar of a summer afternoon in a strange city. (John Banville writing in The New York Review of Books about Amis and his new "House of Meetings.")

Tortured Similes: Getting Under New Yorker's Skin

2007-02-14T14:18:00.000-05:00

The show’s villains usually inflict the more gruesome tortures: their victims are hung on hooks, like carcasses in a butcher shop; poked with smoking-hot scalpels; or abraded with sanding machines. (Jane Mayer in The New Yorker
on “24,” torture and the man behind it all).

His students were particularly impressed by a scene in which Bauer barges into a room where a stubborn suspect is being held, shoots him in one leg, and threatens to shoot the other if he doesn’t talk. In less than ten seconds, the suspect reveals that his associates plan to assassinate the Secretary of Defense. [Retired Law Professor Gary] Solis told me, “I tried to impress on them that this technique would open the wrong doors, but it was like trying to stomp out an anthill.”

“It’s been very heady,” [“24” writer Howard] Gordon said of Washington’s enthusiasm for the show. Roger Director, [“24” executive producer Joel] Surnow’s friend, joked that the conservative writers at “24” have become “like a Hollywood television annex to the White House. It’s like an auxiliary wing.”

Turning Heads & Phrases on the Runway

2007-02-08T07:01:00.000-05:00

Anybody who attempts to deny that today’s cadaverous lovelies have become absurdly attenuated — they move gingerly down the runway like starving egrets — must simply not have been around when models looked more human. (The New York Observer on Fashion Week.

And …

The day’s second jolt of creativity arrived like a sledgehammer from hell. It was the celeb sighting to end all celeb sightings. Indeed, the range and breadth of front-row notables turned the Marc Jacobs show into a veritable waxworks: Rod Stewart, Lil’ Kim, Lenny Kravitz, Lee Radziwill. Other than Dr. Phil and Weird Al Yankovic, it’s hard to think of a contemporary icon who was not present. (Observer)

Getting Gussied Up for Some Important Dates

2007-02-05T19:43:00.000-05:00

In the master bathroom, a white sheepskin rug had been slung over the edge of the sunken tub, looking rather like an albino sloth making its way to a watering hole. (Rebecca Mead writing in The New Yorker about dressing up homes for sale).

Taking a Page (& Plenty More) From 'Profiles'

2007-02-01T14:04:00.000-05:00

Together with Mark Salter, McCain has built a franchise of best-selling books out of his reputation for personal and public integrity. They bear titles such as Faith of My Fathers, Why Courage Matters, and Character Is Destiny, and make John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage look like a mere Hallmark card. (Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair.)

And ...

At the slightest sign of direct sunlight he breaks out the baseball cap that is always kept at the ready, and slathers his face with so much sunblock that he looks like Marcel Marceau until his skin absorbs it. (Purdum). [McCain had a malignant melanoma removed from the left side of his face in 2000.]

Mary & Rhoda Take Your Seats

2007-01-30T11:46:00.000-05:00

We admire the purity of Silverman’s scornfulness, but we don’t want to hang out with her the way we did with Mary and Rhoda. Not that she’d let us get that close anyway. “The Sarah Silverman Program” is like a club so exclusive that only the owner can get in — not even God is on the list. (Tad Friend in The New Yorker).

The Years & the Thunderclouds Pile Up

2007-01-30T11:41:00.000-05:00

But the question of indefinite detention itself — which might be construed as a core issue — hangs over our discussions like a far-off thundercloud, darkening a little with each passing year and each report of another suicide attempt at Guantánamo. ( Joe Lelyveld in The New York Review of Books).